Community members work to keep Attucks alive

Molly Parker, AP: The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan

Published
10:59 pm CDT, Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Milton McDaniel Sr., co-founder of the African-American Museum of Southern Illinois, looks into an old classroom in the former Attucks High School in Carbondale, Ill. in August. The school, which was a closed in 1964, was an important piece of Carbondale’s African-American history and holds many memories for McDaniel, who attended the school in 1963. less

Milton McDaniel Sr., co-founder of the African-American Museum of Southern Illinois, looks into an old classroom in the former Attucks High School in Carbondale, Ill. in August. The school, which was a closed ... more

Photo: Byron Hetzler | The Southern, AP

Photo: Byron Hetzler | The Southern, AP

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Milton McDaniel Sr., co-founder of the African-American Museum of Southern Illinois, looks into an old classroom in the former Attucks High School in Carbondale, Ill. in August. The school, which was a closed in 1964, was an important piece of Carbondale’s African-American history and holds many memories for McDaniel, who attended the school in 1963. less

Milton McDaniel Sr., co-founder of the African-American Museum of Southern Illinois, looks into an old classroom in the former Attucks High School in Carbondale, Ill. in August. The school, which was a closed ... more

Photo: Byron Hetzler | The Southern, AP

Community members work to keep Attucks alive

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CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) — The padlock and the “No Trespassing Sign” on the rusted double-doors says it all: Attucks High School, in a physical sense, is nothing but a shell of its former self.

Stepping inside is like going on an archaeological expedition. Fifty-one years after its closing, the skeletal remains of the historically black school tell a story of what once was, long after the body has decomposed. Down a long hallway, slices of light sneak in through the windows, painting stripes on the worn floor, and creeping up the sides of rusty lockers — some doors closed, others flung open — while silence hangs thick in the August air of an unventilated brick building.

The school was named for Crispus Attucks, the African-American believed to be the first man to die defending the country in the American Revolutionary War; he was the first to die in the Boston Massacre in Boston, Massachusetts, in March 1770.

The sound is a hard-to-describe noiselessness that leaves the mind to wonder what the school once sounded, looked and felt like, a sort of quiescence unique to aging, abandoned buildings that once bustled with youthful activity.

Where teenagers once sat in rows of desks, flitted down the hallways between classes exchanging books and gossip at their lockers, where they once gathered in the gymnasium and chanted the “Bluebirds!” fight song in encouraging some of Carbondale’s most prolific high school athletes, now sits relatively empty collecting dust and piles of glass, discarded wall plastering, and one dead bird.

There also are holes in the wall, exposed wiring, tall weeds at the entrance, growing financial concerns about upkeep and dashed plans for renovating and repurposing the city-owned building that sits between East Jackson and East Main streets.

But even still, as the old school sags under the weight of years and changing times and broken state promises — a grant to rehabilitate the school some years ago was yanked — many of the hundreds of students who graduated from Attucks High School or who grew up with it at the core of their community remain steadfast in their commitment to ensure its spirit lives on.

“It was not just a school of learning. It was a school of learning and value in our community,” said Milton McDaniel Sr., co-founder of the African-American Museum of Southern Illinois, which has a lease agreement with the city for use of the building.

Securing funds

The city purchased the vacant building in 2005, and in February 2006, entered into a lease agreement with the African-American Museum, said City Manager Kevin Baity. Baity said the 20-year lease also gives the museum directors first right of refusal if the city decides to put the building up for sale. McDaniel said that around the time the city purchased the building, former Mayor Brad Cole had plans to turn the former school into a community cultural center that would include the museum, the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau, a Veteran’s Affairs office, and other open spaces for businesses or organizations to locate.

Then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich had offered a state grant for renovations of $668,000, McDaniel said, and initial bids estimated the work to cost between $700,000 and $1.2 million, the remainder of which the city and museum were going to contribute. But after Blagojevich was impeached and replaced by Pat Quinn, the grant was rescinded, McDaniel said, and hopes of saving the building had to be shelved.

Baity said that in 2011 the city obtained a state grant to help secure the building. In total, the city, state and museum contributed about $230,000 to secure the building, which included roof work and replacing windows that were boarded up. Since then, Baity said he couldn’t recall any further official conversations by the council since 2011 regarding plans for the school.

“I haven’t received any direction from council as to try to do something with it, or to continue to carry it as city-owned property,” he said.

McDaniel said the building is too important to the community to let it go without a fight. It also would be a shame, he said, for the tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer contributions and private donations already sunk into it to go to waste.

What the school represents

What stands to be lost, graduates say, is the symbol of a moment in time, and important piece of Carbondale’s African-American history. They describe Attucks as a holistic center of community for countless black students and their parents. Teachers didn’t just send teenagers who acted up to the principal, graduates recall. They followed students home and had a talk with their parents, which was almost certainly followed by that parent having a stern talk or something more serious with the errant child.

If a child showed up to school showing signs of needing food or clothing, and it was known in town parents were struggling financially, someone was guaranteed to reach out with a helping hand.

“We had such a close-knit group at Attucks High School,” said Jacqueline Armstrong, who graduated in 1960. It was around the time of her 20th high school reunion, in 1980, that she and a few others began the Spirit of Attucks, a civic group that is dedicated to both celebrating the school’s history, and also keeping alive its cherished values, not just on the Northeast side, but throughout the city of Carbondale.

They chose the name, she said, because the school was “like family and we wanted to keep that memory alive.”

“We wanted the kids behind us to know what they missed by not having gone to Attucks because it was a family learning center,” she said. “We knew we couldn’t get back what we had, but we wanted the feeling and spirit we had for teachers and classmates to live on.”

Armstrong credited the school with giving her the solid educational background that allowed her to pursue her dreams of living in Chicago, where she worked for years until her retirement with the Internal Revenue Service.

It was a great school that shortchanged her in none of the ways that mattered, she said. Armstrong remembers getting hand-me-down books and athletic equipment from Carbondale Community High School after those items had served their usefulness to the white students.

The legacy

African-American schools in Carbondale date back to 1857, according to a Chicago-based organization, Illinois High School Glory Days, that chronicles the history of public schools in Illinois. The page on Attucks credits Brad Pace, who in 1998 wrote an article titled the “Spirit of Attucks Schools,” for much of the information. Spirit of Attucks membership chair Ann Marie Shepherd also provided a lengthy article to the newspaper that included history of the school and civic organization, now in its 35th year.

The first Attucks school opened in 1920, with five African-American students, growing to more than 100 by 1933. The building that housed a grade school, and for some time a high school, closed in 1969, and was eventually razed. The historically black Attucks High School was built in 1947, and opened in 1948.

Attucks High School was not segregated by official policy, but it might as well have been. No white students attended Attucks High School, and most every student was black, with the exception of an occasional foreign exchange student staying temporarily with adults living in Carbondale’s Northeast Side, graduates recall.